Tag: Church History

Blog Entries

The Legacy of Ancient Christianity for China

Viable parallels exist between ancient Christian learning and life with Chinese Christianity, and part of the purpose of our writing these series of presentations is to identify what those are in the best way we know how.

Blog Entries

The Appeal of the Pentecostal Movement in Hong Kong

The Kaleidoscopic City: A Book Review

Mayfield highlights…the essential continuity that bound the early Pentecostal missionaries together with their evangelical contemporaries; the way in which the “heat and noise” of Pentecostal worship, which often repelled Europeans, actually served to attract the Chinese masses; and the strategic role that women played in the founding of Pentecostal churches.

Blog Entries

The Earliest Chinese Christianity Brought Back to Life

Readers [of Jingjiao] will not only be equipped with the fascinating history of Jingjiao, which helps overcome the anti-Christian narrative that Christianity was brought into China by European and American colonial imperialists. Christians and missionaries in various global cultural contexts will also benefit from this book by learning from the Church of the East missionaries’ creative strategies of inculturation.

Blog Entries

Robert Ekvall: Living on the Edge

A Book Review of Brave Son of Tibet

Robert and Betty went to the untamed Tibet and built relationships, preparing for themselves and others to move and live in these new areas. Robert was a visionary with deep understanding of the cultures, but also brave, as the title says, facing local robbers, politics, and later, war-haunted China.

Blog Entries

Chinese Christianity Endures, Part 2

Learning from the 18th-Century Church Under Authoritarian Rule

Given China’s place in the world order today, it is very unlikely that they will completely ban all foreigners.... We can be confident that no matter how few the foreigners or how persecuted the flock, our God who makes the rocks cry out in testimony will ensure that his witness is never silenced, and his kingdom continues to advance.

Blog Entries

Chinese Christianity Endures, Part 1

Studying the 18th-Century Church under Authoritarian Rule

The study then takes a closer look at the brief emergence of a comparatively Chinese underground church…before concluding with a fascinating reflection on martyrdom, comparing the Chinese notion of suffering perseverance motivated by filial loyalty to the saints who have gone before with the European concept of sacrificing one’s life for the gospel.

Blog Entries

Mapping China’s Christian Legacy

The Story of the China Historical Christian Database

At a time when the study of Christianity in China is becoming more difficult, the CHCD opens a new portal to explore China’s Christian past. The tool might be different than rummaging through a traditional archive, but by repackaging archival materials into an online tool it invites anyone to ask, “What could be discovered if…?”

Supporting Article

Learning from the Larger Story

Menzies discusses his belief that the Pentecostal churches in China have an important contribution to make to the larger, global body of Christ, and that the Pentecostal movement, in China and globally, need the larger body of Christ.

Blog Entries

How Should the Church Respond to Government Control?

A Reader Responds to the Spring 2023 CSQ

The maintenance and advancement of Christianity is highly correlated to three main factors: government control, social receptivity, and culture. Comparatively, China is not the most difficult place for Christianity to develop.

Blog Entries

Rediscovering the Plot

Each... aspect of the Christian witness speaks to one facet of the totality of Christ’s kingdom reign. Each provides a complimentary narrative in the overall plot, which is the story of Christ at work in and through his witnesses on earth.